01-08-2017, 01:05 AM
Social Security is basically a pay-as-you-go system predicated upon the idea that every generation will do at least roughly as well as its predecessors in economic results. It was designed in part to get elderly worker, generally unproductive and accident-prone, out of industrial work while allowing them some modicum of independence. That is a good deal -- enough that younger workers generally do not complain about having to pay payroll taxes. Young people do not want to be responsible for their parents. They have other concerns -- like doing their jobs competently and taking care of their own children.
Medicare exists in part because for-profit medical insurance companies did not want the elderly as customers. It is a commonplace that the last year of a person's life is more expensive in medical costs than all preceding years. No insurance company wants that sort of customer.
Medicare exists in part because for-profit medical insurance companies did not want the elderly as customers. It is a commonplace that the last year of a person's life is more expensive in medical costs than all preceding years. No insurance company wants that sort of customer.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.